Monday, 6 July 2009

Goldfinger

Oh dear Lord, they’re at it again. I can’t: I simply can’t not do this one. It’s just not possible..

Foreign Office to back gay communities around the world

The Foreign Office is to risk the wrath of homophobic regimes worldwide by encouraging British ambassadors to do more to support gay communities.

Chris Bryant, the new Foreign Office minister, who is gay, has started writing personal letters of congratulations to British diplomats who show public support for gay rights. He is praising them for such support even if it draws anger from national governments or local homophobic groups.

‘Pay attention 007,’ said Q, removing his gnarled hand from Bond’s inner thigh. The spy fidgeted sulkily as the fitting went on. ‘As the Minister wants the Service to promote gay rights overseas, and M had decided that all field officers and especially the ‘Double 0’ grade will damn well look the part.’With one quick flick of the wrist to confirm that Bond indeed dressed to the right, the fitting was complete and Her Majesty’s top assassin now had the cutest, the smartest, and the tightest chinos in the world…

Sod it.

Forget the parody – this is serious. It goes straight to the heart of our national security and our system of government and, quite possibly, to no less grave a matter as the survival of multicellular life on Earth – or at least in Europe.

It’s not that I’m obsessed about homosexuality or anything: of my 200-ish posts on JTAT so far only 180 or so have either been concerned with homosexuality or even allude to it very much.

On the eve of today's Gay Pride March in London, Bryant sent handwritten letters of personal congratulations to three British ambassadors in Eastern Europe after they were angrily accused by national governments of promoting gay rights.

I'm sorry Hannay old man, but it’s no exaggeration to say that that the Central European Question is foremost in the minds of the highest in the land. I have it on good authority that a certain Personage herself has expressed grave concerns in this matter, what with her main title being so meaningful in this area. We’re just going to have to send you out there again.

So maybe I lied about the parody.

But. This is how Cool Britannia decided to let the diplomatic lion roar once again as in imperial days of yore?

He has also decided to ask British high commissioners in the Commonwealth to promote the rights of gay people, even though this will run contrary to the teachings of some local churches and governments.

Ah yes. I can see the ruched peach satin lampshades going dark all over Europe as the ominous winds of war begin to blow a vengeful Royal Navy towards the waiting Commonwealth despotic tyrants of the Bahamas, Barbados, and Belize.

And that’s just the B’s.

Bryant would like to see gay rights addressed at the Commonwealth summit in November in Trinidad, due to be attended by the Queen and Gordon Brown.

In a letter to the British ambassador in Poland, Ric Todd, Bryant wrote: "I wanted to congratulate you on your flying of the Rainbow flag next to the Union flag last year, and your guide to lesbian gay and bisexual and transgender rights translated in Polish this year. I know you had some flak, but frankly more power to your elbow. Britain is not just a tolerant country. We fully respect the rights of everyone, regardless of their sexuality."

Todd was criticised for exceeding his authority by Janusz Kochanowski, the Polish civil rights ombudsman.

Picking a fight with Poland? Peaceful, democratic, Good-European Poland? The nation whose people clean our schools and stand at our production lines and who run our motels and who toil in Britain’s many historic car rental agencies? The Poland without any oil reserves whatsoever? That Poland?

Bryant also wrote to the British ambassador in Bulgaria, Stuart Williams, who sent a message of support to the Rainbow friendship rally in Sofia earlier this year. Bryant wrote: "I fully support what you have done. I am sure that your coverage will have given confidence to many."

Bulgaria did not decriminalize homosexuality until 2002, doing so to conform to European Union norms as it pressed for membership.Nevertheless, polls from the end of 2007 showed that 80% of Bulgarian respondents expressed a negative view of gays and lesbians, with 53% voicing an "extremely negative" view.

Why, it brings a tear to my eye to know that, with absolutely no-one on our side once again, the inhabitants of plucky little Blighty should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing…except that the well-dressed 20% are deeply defensive of the fact and spend a lot of time showing off their terrible taste in soft furnishings and their undying antipathy for goddesses of the silver screen, musical-comedy stars and disco divas.

He is also to write to the British ambassador to Bucharest, Robin Barnett, to thank him for attending the gay rights march in the Romanian capital last month.

‘So,’ said Professor van Helsing to the assembled party ‘We shall at once take our so-gallant Englishmen into this dark land; old in blood and war as it is, and hope with God’s grace to beard this monster in its den and so to bring peace to the suffering friends of our dear sweet Dorothy.’

This would be the Romania without the nuclear programme that excludes all international inspection. The Romania which - along with Poland and Bulgaria - is not governed by oil-rich death-cultists who order their co-religionists to take bulging rucksacks into the Underground and onto London buses.

In fact , the only person who has ever managed to collocate the words ’Underground’ and ‘Bulgaria’ was Mike Batt, and look what happened to him. Chilling.

The purpose of the Bryant letters is to spell out that the British Foreign Office policy of support for gay and lesbian rights is not just a formality, but instead a central part of the government's drive for human rights that diplomats are to champion as part of British foreign policy.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen (and those who are a bit of both, and those who were the one but are now mostly the other, mix and match as you will, one way or another): the apex of British political evolution, the highest achievement of centuries of military and diplomatic effort is support for gay and lesbian rights.

Ditch your old-fashioned notions of trying to maintain the balance of power in Europe; dismantle any dreams for what you’d do East of Suez; and throw out the threadbare Sixties velvet kaftan of Woodstock-era Atlanticism. Recycle ruthlessly, if you will, even the svelte Abba-era European mantra of being ooh la-lacommunitaire, for Jean-Marie we’re only dancing and unleash the poodles of war which most likely will not be allowed near the bones of any kind of Pomeranian any time soon.

Bryant's determination to take this campaign within the Commonwealth will be hugely controversial if he pushes the message and diplomatic pressure hard. Many Commonwealth states maintain laws criminalising homosexuality—including most of the countries of the Caribbean and more than two-thirds of African nations. In four African countries, including Nigeria, consensual homosexual acts are still punishable by death.

Hmm, and what is going on in Africa - the same Africathat consisted so recently of many British Commonwealth countrieswhich Britain has so gailyspurned in recent decades for its fancy new European pals, some of whom have also neglected their former colonies? You know, the Africa with much of the uranium in it? Uranium that might be used either to make us less dependent on Saudi Arabia and Iran for oil – or that might be used for them to build the Bomb?

So the homosexual killing Saudi Arabia and Iran get a free pass. The west has had years to subvert the weakened and unpopular Islamic Revolution in Iran and did nothing when the people came onto the streets to demand freedom.

Iran gets extra years of diplomatic cover from Labour Britain to build its bomb.

International peace. Nuclear security in Europe. The right to life for homosexuals worldwide. ‘Domestic’ terrorism in the UK. All these connect in the Islamist hell-holes and oil wells of the Middle East. There's a common thread here that draws it all together and that begs strategy and co-ordination at the highest level.

James Higham ... we going to declare war on Blackpool and Brighton?But seriously, it's a really, good idea not to let Mister Balls in on this because, honestly, picking on Romania?

GCooper. It was the Stonewall riots 30th anniversary on 28 June. I'm pretty certain any actual cancer cure would be kept off the market until it was available for the poorest in society - or until they discovered that massive doses administered to rats caused sterility, blindness, or conservatism.